University of Virginia Library

Fifth Annual Report of the Archivist, University of Virginia
Library, for the Year 1934-35.

AN ANNUAL stock-taking in archival work during this era of
rapid change gives pause for reflection. Expansion and planning,
with wide variation in the modification of each by the other,
may be said to characterize these recent years. The sudden expansion
of research activity in the social sciences and related fields, quickened
by the World War debacle, created a heavy demand for the necessary
raw materials. Since economic and social planning were the crux of
the new viewpoint in research, scholars called for every kind of published
or unpublished material bearing upon human relationships, and
those librarians in closer contact with this research took up the challenge
to accomplish the impossible.

Their eager acceptance of this fresh opportunity for growth echoed
that expansionism so characteristic in many another channel of American
development. Our highly prized individualism (paradoxically
enough, considering the ultimate purpose of the new movement) had
found a new means of asserting itself. For a decade the promoters and
builders in these broadening fields of scholarship indulged themselves
in the thrill of unlimited acquisition of research materials, and tempted
others who could neither keep the pace nor afford to ignore it. Planned,
co-operative collecting of such materials, except on paper for future
application, was futile while the market was bullish and speculative
dreams of all inclusive libraries were still soaring. During these feverish
years the Social Science Research Council was studying the problem
and pointing the way through its Committee on Materials for Research,
from both a national and a regional point of view; and when
the Public Documents Committee of the American Library Association
took over this work of the Council, the rude awakening had come and
the necessity for economy and retrenchment made co-operative planning
easier.[1]

The large attendance and stimulating discussions at the annual sessions
of this A. L. A. Committee bespeak the genuine interest in the
planned collection and distribution of research materials and reveal, a
meeting of minds with fine co-operative spirit. The state document
center plan, which assures the preservation of all the documents of a

State in at least one library within its boundaries; and the dispersion
of duplicates through the H. W. Wilson clearing house to other states
have, by their success, encouraged further development in related
fields.[2] Recognition of the research value of the materials issued by
the New Deal agencies, much of it in near-print form, has led to discussion
of the means of preservation and to bringing pressure to bear
in Washington so that sufficient copies are available for libraries. Of
special significance are the methods of reproduction of research materials,
destined, perhaps, to revolutionize much of our library technique;
the photographing of current newspapers on motion-picture film by
the Eastman Company being one of the most recent developments.

Through the meetings of the Association of Research Libraries, and
of the Public Archives Commission of the American Historical Association,
problems more directly concerned with semi-public and official
manuscript collections are dealt with, whereby the program and work
in Virginia, for example, can be visualized with a degree of national
perspective.[3] The field of manuscript collecting will doubtless always
retain much of its individualistic character and the interests of scholarship
will be best promoted by agreement among the active agencies
in a particular area upon a positive policy of preservation and of cooperation
in rendering the material accessible in the original or by reproduction.
Decentralization of material is less serious today with our
highly developed transportation facilities and cheap methods of copying.
Thus in the South, the appearance of new state or local agencies,
where a few years ago only three or four existed, is evidence of a
growing appreciation of manuscript (and other) source material, and
should be encouraged, in view of the magnitude of the field. Experience
in Virginia has shown that devotion to the State and to the University
has moved many a Virginian to place in safe-keeping in the
University Library family papers which he would refuse to relinquish
to any institution outside the State. During the past year the Maryland
archives building has been completed on the campus of St. John's
College, Annapolis, and plans for the collection of original historical
materials are under way at Louisiana State University. In Washington,
D. C., the opening of the new United States Archives Building,
with Dr. R. D. W. Connor as Archivist, is an event of far-reaching
significance.

When the opportunity presented itself during the past winter of accelerating
the inventory of Virginia county archives, by means of
United States Government funds under the FERA, a project was submitted
and granted for such work in certain Tidewater counties,
subject to the approval of the local relief offices. After considerable
delay, workers were employed in Charles City, Hanover,
and York, the last named under supervision of the National Monument
Commission at Yorktown. Satisfactory results were obtained,
aided by mimeographed form-sheets listing the various kinds of record-books
to be found and thus guiding the worker. Some additional data
on church records and historic sites and buildings were gathered during
the remaining time; and in Hanover County, a friend with artistic
talent accompanied one of the relief workers and made miniature drawings
of the historic buildings located on a large outline map of the
county. During the past summer an inventory of the Culpeper County
records was made by Mr. W. Edwin Hemphill, acting archivist. To
this extent, then, the routine work in the counties has advanced, though
retarded considerably the past three years by other archival duties.[4]

The completion of the bibliography of Virginia newspapers since
1820 for publication affords occasion for some observations on the nature,
extent, and distribution of this material. In addition to historical
notes on each paper and on many of the editors, and an introduction
sketching a century of Virginia journalism, the bibliography lists the
holdings of these newspapers in editors' and publishers' offices throughout
the State, in some fifty Virginia libraries, and in thirty research libraries
in other states. In checking the files of current weekly papers
it was found that only a few were being preserved in any library; that
many college or public libraries kept only a file of one daily paper from
Richmond or the nearest city; that the facilities of the State Library
and the University Library were inadequate for keeping files of all
current papers, besides those of years ago. Therefore the archivist, as
chairman of the Virginia Library Association's Committee on Co-operation
worked out a plan of allocating to each local library one or two
local weeklies, with the request that a file be kept as a permanent record.
While there are several obvious weaknesses in this scheme, including
lack of space and uncertainty of continuity, the consent of 50
per cent of the librarians, some of whom welcomed the idea, means an
appreciable addition of original local material. The State and the University
Library have assumed responsibility for preserving the more
important dailies and weeklies and are avoiding needless duplication.

The newspaper collection in the University Library has grown steadily
along lines indicated in last year's report,[5] the largest additions being
for the period since ca. 1875. All sections of the State are represented,
some of the best files donated by the editors, as, for example,
the Warsaw Northern Neck News and the Pearisburg Virginian, both
covering fifty years or more. Also worthy of mention are the Shenandoah
Valley of New Market, Crawford's Weekly of Norton, and a
bound set of The Old Commonwealth of Harrisonburg,[6] besides countless
other scattered issues of many a paper long since forgotten. From
Fredericksburg come twenty volumes of the ledgers and day-books of
the Free Lance-Star, 1882-1916. The aim of the library to make all
acquisitions accessible without delay has been realized through student
assistants paid from FERA funds and ably directed by Mr. John B.
May of the Library staff.

A generation ago, when the collection of old newspapers was carried
on largely by northern libraries, their interest scarcely extended
beyond 1865. The indelible impression wrought by the Civil War
upon the entire country turned the attention of scholars toward research
on the ante bellum period and the quest for materials on the Old
South. Thus many a Virginia newspaper file, offered for sale, augmented
the collection in some well established library in the North.
The never failing appeal of the war placed a special value on Confederate
imprints which these same institutions were best able to purchase.
Moreover, some of the southern papers carried off by Federal soldiers
as souvenirs eventually found their way to these repositories. Nevertheless,
the activity of southern libraries in recent years, with the advantage
of proximity and personal contacts, has served to improve their
position to such a degree that research on the South can no longer be
done without prolonged work in their collections.

For research on the period since 1865 the available newspapers are
to be found mostly in the South. That Northern libraries and historical
societies never collected so consistently for the years of reconstruction
and later in the South, is doubtless to be explained by the difficulties
of housing steadily increasing accumulations from all sections of
the country, as well as by lack of interest in more recent papers. Research
on Virginia subjects since 1865 can be carried on adequately only by
using these sources in the Virginia State Library and the University
Library, supplemented by files or scattered issues in local Virginia libraries

or publishers' offices. Yet, the combined holdings of Virginia
papers throughout the United States disclose a meager representation
of the Republican press, of Negro and labor organs, and of the German
press of Richmond, even allowing for the limited number produced.
It is an interesting commentary on the vagaries of newspaper
collecting that the best file of the Richmond Planet, oldest Negro paper
of Virginia, is in the Harvard College Library.

Well known by reputation and through their printed lists and bibliographies
are the newspaper collections in the American Antiquarian
Society, Duke University, the Library of Congress, New York Public
Library, and Wisconsin State Historical Society, all of which include
important Virginia files. Deserving of special mention are the
Virginia papers (many of them rare issues) in the Connecticut State
Library, Henry E. Huntington Library, McCormick Historical Society,
Massachusetts Historical Society, New York Historical Society,
University of North Carolina, University of Texas, and Western Reserve
Historical Society. A number of the smaller Virginia libraries
contain valuable collections, hitherto almost unknown, of papers from
the locality dating back a century or more, notably the College of William
and Mary, Washington and Lee University, and the public libraries
of Fredericksburg, Norfolk, Petersburg, and Lynchburg. In the
county clerk's offices in Charlotte, Lexington, and Staunton, and in the
Alexandria city manager's office are preserved bound files of the leading
weeklies covering a half century or more. The element of chance,
however, plays so dominant a rôle in the survival of historical materials
that complete files for long periods are lacking of such influential papers
as the Abingdon Virginian, Charlottesville Jeffersonian Republican,
Harrisonburg Rockingham Register, Lynchburg Republican, Petersburg
Intelligencer, and Warrenton Virginian.

In the Virginia Room of the University Library the ever expanding
manuscript and printed materials have been rendered more useable, in
spite of congested conditions, by the intelligent planning and painstaking
labors of the curator, Mr. John Cook Wyllie. The General John
D. Imboden Papers, 1831-95, presented to the University, are important
for their legal and economic data covering this widely known Virginian's
law practice in Staunton in ante bellum days, some war correspondence,
and his untiring efforts to attract outside capital to the State
and to develop the resources and projected railroads of southwestern
Virginia. His talent for improved mechanical devices, some of which
were patented, is shown in numerous plans and drawings among his
papers. From Augusta County come miscellaneous deeds and other

legal documents of the Smiley Family and the account books of the
Smiley Mill, 1808-1901 (incomplete), on Moffatt's Creek. The Twyman
Papers of Albemarle County, consisting of letters and deeds, 17501911,
treat of economic and social conditions especially during 1842-65,
and include a few Civil War letters. From the old home on the Miller
farm near Elkton, Rockingham County, was obtained an old ledger
containing a register of Confederate soldiers who were lodged there
during 1864-65. A fragmentary account of the business of the Orange
Farmers' Co-operative is afforded in its record book, 1917-21. A Virginian's
interest in the oil industry, chiefly in Texas and Oklahoma,
1920-33, appears in the typewritten reports of Thomas K. Harnsberger
and in related pamphlets. The Elizabeth Oakes-Smith and Seba Smith
collection of letters and other unpublished writings, ca. 1830-95, will
be of interest to students of American literature and of social life in
New York and New England during the Victorian age.

The Library has received on deposit the Barbour Papers, 1760-1895,
from the famous Barboursville Estate in Orange County. Most valuable
are the manuscripts of James Barbour (1775-1842), statesman
and diplomat. It is particularly appropriate that his papers should be
preserved in the University Library where many of his brother's,
Philip Pendleton Barbour's (1783-1841), are to be found in the Ambler
Collection, previously acquired.[7] Political and economic problems
during the transitional period of the 1820's and 1830's are discussed,
among other topics, in these collections. The papers of James Barbour's
son, B. Johnson Barbour, make up the balance of the manuscripts
for the years after the former's death. From Campbell County
the Saunders Papers, 1763-1905, were received on deposit, a large accumulation
revealing economic and social conditions in southside Virginia
through the Watts Family, 1781-89, in Prince Edward County
and vicinity, and through the Watts and Saunders kinsfolk, 1800-60,
with pertinent comments on contemporary politics. Numerous Confederate
vouchers for supplies, muster rolls of Virginia Volunteers, and
war letters are in the collection, as well as family letters from the latter
decades of the century. The consent of the Madison County court
was obtained for the preservation in the Library of several merchandise
firms' account books, on indefinite loan, thus continuing the policy
promoted successfully in a few other counties.[8]

The Leica camera purchased last year has become indispensable for

copying material that can be borrowed for only a limited time. By
this means the Library has added letters of Francis Walker Gilmer
and his brother Peachy Ridgway Gilmer, Peachy's autobiography, 182326,
and his sketch of Francis. The Journals of John Goss, Baptist
minister from Albemarle County, tell of his successive journeys to
Williamsburg, Georgia, and Kentucky, 1800-07, in three pocket notebooks.
The Diary of J. Plummer Taliaferro of Orange County, 183839,
was photographed because he described student life in the University
of Virginia. He kept his diary in a ledger-like book in which the
minutes of the Philomathean Society of Winchester (Va.) had been
recorded, 1830-35. The Civil War letters of John B. Webb, Wisconsin
soldier, written during 1861-64, from Virginia to his brother and
sister in La Crosse, Wis., were loaned by the State Teachers College
in that city through the kindness of Professor A. H. Sanford. A set
of church historical sketches in manuscript, written ca. 1883 at the request
of the West Hanover Presbytery of Virginia and forgotten for
a half century, were also copied. Photostatic copies of the Executive
Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, 1752-76, were acquired
from the Public Record Office in London,[9] at the suggestion of Professor
T. P. Abernethy.

Among the more important printed materials added during the year
are speeches on the Readjuster movement, and pamphlets and newspapers
on Virginia Populism from the collection of Charles H. Pierson
who was prominent in the movement. A copy of W. DuBose
Sheldon's unpublished thesis (1934) written at Princeton on this subject
and based upon this material was presented by the author to the
University of Virginia. Files of mimeographed periodicals from the
Civilian Conservation Corps camps in Albemarle and Montgomery
counties are being preserved as local evidence concerning the New Deal.
An interesting set of photographs (copies) of early Roanoke, including
old buildings, street scenes, groups of citizens, and the mayors since
1883, was obtained through a local photographer who had borrowed
the originals from the families of old residents.

The collecting of duplicate copies of Virginia Acts from the county
clerks' offices for exchange purposes[10] has been encouraged by the
rapid growth of the University's Bureau of Public Administration and
the plans of the director, Mr. Raymond Uhl, for consistent expansion
in the field of state as well as municipal documents. The Library has

continued its program of putting into use many of its duplicate volumes
on history, literature, travel, etc., by offering them to other libraries,
especially in Virginia, for the cost of transportation.

A grant from the University's Institute for Research in the Social
Sciences released the archivist from his duties during the past summer
to carry on independent historical research, and made possible the appointment
of Mr. W. Edwin Hemphill as acting archivist. Upon him
fell the burden of necessary revisions and final checking and indexing
of the newspaper bibliography. He has also prepared the appendix to
the present Annual Report, supplementing the one of last year and
serving as a guide to another group of important Virginia historical
sources. The fine caliber of Mr. Hemphill's work in every respect is
highly commendable.

An annual word of thanks to the staffs of the University Library
and the Research Institute for their cordial assistance is, at best, only
a meager expression of appreciation; and to Mr. Harry Clemons, Librarian,
and Dr. Wilson Gee, Director of the Institute, the archivist
is especially indebted for their counsel and encouragement.